


Between Darkness and Wonder

by Glinda



Category: Rivers of London - Ben Aaronovitch
Genre: Families of Choice, Friendship, Gen, Magic Made Them Do It, Platonic Relationships, magic is weird
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-22
Updated: 2016-05-22
Packaged: 2018-06-10 00:34:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,647
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6930769
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Glinda/pseuds/Glinda
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It started, as a depressing number of police cases do, with someone’s twisted idea of a joke.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Between Darkness and Wonder

**Author's Note:**

  * For [plumedy](https://archiveofourown.org/users/plumedy/gifts).



> Plumedy requested a platonic version of 'Magic Made them Do It' and families of choice. 
> 
> There's no sex (only hugging!) but that's not the intent of the spell and there is discussion of the potential consent issues of it being applied to other people so please tread carefully if that's likely to cause you issues.

It started, as a depressing number of police cases do, with someone’s twisted idea of a joke. If Peter had a quid for every time he’d heard a variation of ‘it was just supposed to be a bit of a laugh’ from a suspect as they stood over their badly injured mate or outside a burning building then he’d be taking his summer holidays in the Bahamas rather than the Balearics.

As so often, this one had backfired in a fairly spectacular fashion. 

Over the years, Peter had mostly got accustomed to Molly’s tendency to wake him up by standing at the foot of his bed and staring at him. She tended to knock first if it was urgent these days so Peter figured that it was urgent enough that he needed to get up right now but not actually their equivalent of a 999 call. It was still bloody unnerving. Nonetheless, Peter threw some clothes on and followed Molly down to the library where Nightingale was waiting for them. Well, waiting was probably not the correct term for what Nightingale was doing. He was certainly in the library and it was clearly him that Molly had wanted Peter to come and see, but Nightingale was sitting in the far corner still wearing his heavy coat and shivering violently. 

“Sir,” Peter asked, concerned but uncertain as to quite what was wrong, “you alright there?”

Worryingly Nightingale didn’t respond verbally, instead he pushed one arm out in front of himself in a ‘stay back’ motion and pushed himself further back into his corner. As far as Peter had been aware, his boss had just been out having a pint or two and a catch-up with Dr Walid. Peter had intended to join them, but the day before had involved a potential falcon related consult at 4am and by half 8 Peter had wanted nothing more than his bed and had waved Nightingale off to enjoy the pub without him. Unless there’d been a case in the intervening couple of hours – it was, he realised only just gone half 1, Nightingale had probably got the last tube home – it seemed unlikely he’d been injured on a case. Which didn’t, actually preclude the more mundane threats of London; it was entirely possible that his boss had been mugged on the way home. 

Peter began to move forwards, thinking muzzily about first aid kits and shock blankets when Molly grabbed his wrist in a vice-like grip. Effectively halting him in his tracks. He turned back to her confusion and annoyance warring within him, but her expression brooked no disagreement and she pulled him inexorably towards one of the side tables where a particularly large tome was sitting open. She let go of his wrist as soon as they reached the book so Peter took the hint and dropped into a chair and pulled the book towards him. The word _Amorata_ jumped out at him and the rest of what he read definitely confirmed his Harry Potter associations, except you know, even creepier in reality. 

“No cure other than to ride it out, and it’s contagious, but it doesn’t say how the contagion is passed…” muttered Peter searching the text in vain. 

His train of thought was promptly derailed by the cold of Molly’s fingers pressing briefly against his face. Skin on skin contact made perfect sense, no wonder Nightingale was warding them off. 

“And presumably he didn’t touch you…” instead of Molly shaking her head as he expected, her expression transformed into one of curiosity and almost wonder. She reached out as though to touch his cheek again, but with the whole of her hand this time, only before she could touch him she jerked her hand back as though she’d been burned with an almost comically horrified expression. Her expression and body language promptly returned to normal and she gestured at Nightingale. Peter was briefly hugely relieved that she had been acting out Nightingale’s behaviour rather than succumbing to the spell, but seeping up under it was the really quite depressing thought that an attempted friendly pat on the cheek had been enough to clue both Nightingale and Molly in that he was in a severely altered state of mind. 

“Alright, well he’s not burning up, if anything he looks like he’s getting colder, let’s warm him up. We must have spare blankets, hot water bottles, that sort of thing?” Molly gestured to a nearby chair where a blanket lay discarded, presumably she’d tried to coax him to either use it or go to bed before she’d come to get Peter. “Yeah, well, let’s try a two pronged attack, you get more blankets and I’ll try and talk him down a little. Maybe once he’s a little calmer we can bundle him up and get him somewhere a bit comfier to sweat this out.” 

Molly cocked her head and stared at him for a long moment before solemnly handing him two pairs of gloves out of seemingly nowhere, turning on her heel and heading off. Peter took that for approval of his plan and picking up the abandoned blanket pile, he turned his attention back to Nightingale. 

Carefully Peter edged closer to the corner that Nightingale had staked out. 

“Alright, so Molly says no skin to skin contact so I’m going to throw you these,” he said keeping his voice carefully calm and steady as he gently bowled the rolled up gloves across the floor to his boss. Nightingale stared at them blankly for a moment before snatching them up and pulling them on. Peter took advantage of his momentary distraction to sneak a bit closer, close enough to offer one the blankets. “I really think you ought to be in your bed, but if you won’t go, will you at least take the blanket, you look cold.”

It was a long slow minute while Nightingale transferred his focus from the gloves – the texture of his gloves was apparently fascinating, but if the spell did make him touch sensitive that was hardly surprising – onto the blanket. His hand moved ever so slowly towards the blanket until it made contact and then the blanket had been snatched away and wrapped round his legs at lightning speed. Peter offered up the second blanket, finally close enough to ascertain that Nightingale’s teeth were actually chattering softly. 

“If you can lean away from the wall for a second we can get this round your shoulders,” he suggests. 

Nightingale stares back at him silently for a long moment before nodding jerkily and allowing Peter to drape the blanket round his shoulders, looking up in surprise when Peter allows a sizeable fold of the fabric to flop over his head like a hoodie. He looks so lost and vulnerable sitting there, nothing like the way the book described being under this particular spell. Peter wiggles his gloved fingers at his boss in a half-hearted wave, feeling utterly helpless, only for one of Nightingale’s own gloved hands to dart out and grab it. Peter keeps his hand loose, refusing to tense up and potentially escalate the situation, while Nightingale stares hard at their hands, exasperation and amusement warring on his face. Even through two layers of fabric, Peter can feel the cold emanating from Nightingale as he tries experimentally to release one finger after another. Whatever this spell was supposed to do, it has clearly gone wrong in some way – in the meantime the side effects are Peter’s to deal with. 

Carefully Peter lowers himself down to sit cross-legged beside Nightingale, gently pulling on Nightingale’s hands so that he can get them between his own and gently rub some warmth into them. After a few minutes he can feel the circulation returning and glancing up, Nightingale’s eyes look heavy and his head is nodding as though he’s resisting toppling into Peter. Moving slowly to avoid startling his colleague, Peter turns them both gently so that he can lean against the wall too, rearranging the blankets so that there’s no chance of accidental skin contact and eases Nightingale round so that his head is leaning on Peter’s shoulder and his own arm can wrap around Nightingale’s shoulders. He begins rubbing light circles on Nightingale’s other shoulder and the shaking seems to subside slightly so he keeps it up. 

Peter looks up at the sound of fabric rustling to find Molly standing in front of them holding up what Peter suspects is actually his duvet. He feels Nightingale nod his acquiescence and Molly drapes the duvet over them both. Peter opens his mouth to object to being tucked in with his boss, but subsides at Molly’s arched eyebrow. She leaves the other side untucked and silently moves round the room checking the fire, putting on a nearby reading lamp and switching off all the other lights. Molly returns to them and, after a moment’s hesitation, slides into the corner beside them, tucking the rest of the duvet around herself and curling into Nightingale in a mirror image of Peter’s position. Peter carefully lowers his arm to make space for her to lean more comfortably.

Nightingale briefly shivers harder before relaxing into the second source of heat. He makes the smallest noise of distress as he tries to lean into them both at once and as one they both curl tighter into him. 

“It’s alright sir, you’re safe, we’ve got you. We won’t let anyone…won’t let you hurt anyone, alright?” Peter assures him. 

Nightingale tenses briefly before nodding and then suddenly relaxing entirely, like a puppet whose strings have been cut. Peter and Molly exchange worried looks over his drooping head, but his pulse remains strong and steady and his breathing only shivers a little in line with how cold he is. They curl into him and keep silent watch, waiting for the dawn and the spell to break. 

~ ~ ~ 

 

“Bloody stupid idea that was,” agrees Zach when Peter tracks him down, “as if The Nightingale would be susceptible to that sort of thing. He’s survived this long, I bet he’s seen every kind of glamour known to Fae over the years.”

“Yeah, to be honest, Molly and I were more concerned that he might go into hypothermic shock than that he would try to ravish either of us.” Admitted Peter. 

“Shit,” stated Zach eyes going wide. “I’ve seen people over-heat from an excess of _Eros_ or _Ludos_ under that spell but I’ve only seen the aftermath of one person going the other way. If…uh…you successfully fight off the first stages of the spell with its heat spikes and lust, the spell and your body go into reverse, making you colder and colder so you crave the warmth of another person…”

“Gets you coming and going,” interjected Peter.

“Yeah, they either succumb fully to the spell or they…get so cold their body starts to shut down. So did you treat it like mild hypothermia, core rewarming and that?” Asked Zach.

“Yes,” confirmed Peter, unsure now where this was going, “Molly thought it could be transferred by skin to skin contact, so we couldn’t risk putting him a warm bath or the old ‘sharing body heat’ trick. So we bundled him up in layers of blankets and gloves and ummm…essentially hugged him until he warmed up.”

It had seemed the most simple and obvious tactic in the world last night, but saying it out loud now it sounded, well, a bit odd. Zach just laughed instead of looking at him askance.

“Oh I bet the Nightingale just loved that, is he being all hilariously stiff-upper lip about it today? Nope, I didn’t snuggle into my apprentice and my housekeeper like a chilly small child, nope not me guvnor!”

Peter nodded, he’d left Nightingale in Dr Walid’s tender care while he went to investigate some leads, but honestly it had been largely to give his boss space to get over the awkwardness. Peter was still reluctant to let him out of his sight. 

Zach sobered somewhat before he continued.

“Seriously though, it was a good job it was you and Molly who found him then. Probably saved his life. Sounds like you transmuted it neatly into _Philia_ , don’t suppose the spell cared about what kind of love it got fed.” He paused for a moment reacting to Peter’s puzzled expression, “not _Philia_ like its used in English for fetishes and that, _Philia_ in the ancient Greek sense, comradeship - that pure and epic love for your brothers-in-arms thing. Yeah, some twat thought, let’s hit the old man with a lust spell, that’ll be hilarious, that’ll undermine his professional and personal relationships. As if a proper gentleman like The Nightingale would think of anything the spell made him do as anything less than assault. Didn’t think about how lonely it must have been being the only wizard in England for decades and decades. I’ve depressed myself now, what a bastard, that’s not remotely funny is it?”

“No, it’s really not,” agreed Peter, thinking of how huge and empty The Folly had been when he moved in. Remembering the way both Nightingale and Molly had responded to him when he’d first arrived, never coming too close, and the way they fussed around each other pretending to be annoyed by the other’s fussing. The way Molly had carefully watched and then mirrored Peter’s actions in making contact with Nightingale. No one had ever taught her how humans were kind to each other platonically, had they? The pair of them had been alone in The Folly for years, slowly becoming friends but with not the faintest idea how to reach out to each other beyond that. How the hell was he supposed to tell his boss that if he needed a hug, he’d be welcome to it?

“I’m suddenly picturing myself holding the sorry bastard’s arms while you punch them in the face,” commented Zach philosophically, “let’s go find them, yeah?”

“I’m not punching anyone in face,” Peter corrected him, “but I am going to find a way to legally make sure they never try that nonsense on anyone else. And that will be _almost_ as satisfying.”

Zach shrugged equitably, “as long as it doesn’t end with me on the witness stand, I’m here for you mate.”

~ ~ ~ 

By the time that Peter made it back to The Folly, he’d taken the asbo halfway across London three times, walked several miles, called in several favours and put the fear of, well the Isaacs up a fair number of other contacts. After a fortifying phone conversation with Beverley, one of her younger sisters had even turned up with some promising leads. (Mama Thames’ daughters evidentially had no illusions that if this had been a civilian The Folly would be after the perpetrator for either sexual assault or manslaughter.)

It had been a productive day, but frankly last night was catching up with Peter and he didn’t have the energy to negotiate the undoubtedly awkward interpersonal issues he was likely to encounter at home. He took the path of least resistance and headed for the Tech Cave, telling himself he just needed to recharge his batteries for a bit and then he’d go face the music. It wasn’t until he was halfway up the stairs that he realised that the TV and the lights were on. He’d forgotten there was rugby on tonight. 

He squared his shoulders and prepared to face whatever tactic Nightingale decided to employ. It was pointless in the end, because he opened the door onto a scene he wouldn’t have imagined in a million years. For a start, the table in front of the coach was covered in takeaway cartons, an assortment of choices half-eaten or still steaming away. On top of that Molly was perched on the edge of the sofa, cautiously attempting to eat what looked like chicken chow mein with chopsticks. Nightingale was attempting to convince her that a fork was also acceptable but she was persisting grimly with her chopsticks. Molly looked up when he entered and graced Peter with a look that clearly told him exactly who she blamed for this entire situation. Peter did his best to look apologetic but his stomach chose that moment to announce its emptiness and he decided to just brazen out the awkwardness and dove into the prawn crackers shamelessly. Nightingale shuffled along the sofa to give Peter room to sit down and pushed a still covered carton in his direction. Peter plonked down on the sofa and cautiously opened the carton – he wasn’t particularly surprised to see it contained his favourite dish. He had a number of questions, but between the good food and the good company he was willing to let them lie for the moment. In the meantime, he attempted to inhale his food, enjoyed Nightingale’s rambling soliloquy on the role and development of cutlery across different cultures, and was half endeared, half horrified, by the terrible noise that prawn crackers made against Molly’s teeth as she ate them, combined with the expression of utter delight that graced her face at the taste/texture combination. Though he was probably slightly more unnerved by the suspiciously fond looks that she was throwing at Nightingale as he rambled. And that was more because he strongly suspected that they were mirrored on his own face. 

By the time they’d finished eating, the rugby had reached half time and a contented silence rolled over the three of them. 

‘’Well, I don’t care if this was just a way to say ‘thanks for looking after me when I was magically incapacitated’ without actually having to bring up the massively awkward topic, but this was great, we should do it again. Without the potentially deadly, coercive magic.” Peter observed breaking the silence. 

Molly gave him the blank look that he mentally termed her ‘humans are weird’ look. (She gave him that look a lot.) Nightingale laughed ruefully. 

“It was a rather transparent ploy, but I did want to thank you both for taking care of me, even before Abdul made it very clear to me that between yourselves you’d almost certainly saved my life. My previous experience with that type of spell has always involved the caster sticking around to see the effect and giving up and casting something else when I was able to resist it and fight back. The ‘hit and run’ method is rather new to me and has all sorts of concerning policing implications for us. But more than that, we now have a somewhat unusual method for combatting the spell, even it may be difficult to replicate. If physically warming the person at that stage in the spell were effective alone it seems likely that we would have records of established practices to deal with it. Abdul thinks, and I am reluctantly in agreement with him, that there needs to be an emotional element to the cure. Meaning that we cannot just train the wider force to recognise the signs, wrap the victim in blankets and restrain them. It requires them to be warmed and restrained by someone, or in my case two someones, about whom the victim of the spell cares about and not in a superficial fashion…” Nightingale trailed off, clearly unused to even this much emotionally honesty after all this time. 

When Peter looked up, Molly was staring at him really intensely. Right. Molly couldn’t say anything so he had to. He opened his mouth to reply and words completely failed him. Molly actually rolled her eyes at him and then flung herself sideways, out of her prim perched position into a sort of awkward flump against Nightingale’s side. Prompting an oof of surprise and a pleased and puzzled expression to burst out of the recipient. Peter shrugged to himself and flopped down to mirror her in a more controlled fashion and forced his words to unstick. 

“Yeah, yeah, we love you too sir. You’re a good friend and a great boss, and if you ever need a hug you just need to say. And I’m pretty sure Molly’s been calling you Thomas in her head for years, but I’m probably going to hold off until I finish my apprenticeship. In the meantime, can we go back to doing the stoic thing? Cos this much emotional honesty is massively awkward so…” Peter trailed off as he wrestled with the cognitive dissonance of having this conversation with his head on his boss’s shoulder. 

“…Let us never speak of it again?” Continued Nightingale with a wry smile. 

“Pretty much,” muttered Peter into Nightingale’s sleeve. 

“Thank goodness for that,” muttered Nightingale curling an arm around each of them. 

The silence that followed was oddly comfortable and when the game started up again, Peter leaned forward to get the remote and then flopped right back where he’d been. The rugby continued in companionable silence. 

“Go on then, tell us what they’re doing wrong, you know you want to,” encouraged Peter. 

“I really don’t think that you expect me to believe that you’ve not heard my opinions on the subject more often and at greater length than anyone might care to?” asked Nightingale. 

“Nah, but Molly hasn’t heard it yet. It’s like a rite of passage, that she needs to experience.” Peter assured him. 

Nightingale glanced down at Molly and whatever he saw in her expression, caused him to sigh deeply and launch into a detailed lecture on the failings and strengths of the current England rugby squad. When Peter leaned forward a little to snag another prawn cracker ten minutes later, he noted that Molly had fallen asleep against Nightingale’s shoulder, expression utterly serene. He abandoned his quest for another cracker and allowed himself to unwind a little further, sinking a little deeper into the sofa. 

The game would be over soon, he’d move then. Just a few minutes more.


End file.
